(This analysis is a preview of the
NASA chapter in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXXII: Research and Development
FY 2008, a comprehensive look at the President's budget for R&D in FY
2008. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of NASA R&D, different
from figures originally presented in the President's budget. More tables and continually
updated supplemental materials on R&D in the FY 2008 budget can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) suffers a budget setback
in 2007 but looks to rebound with a $1.1 billion requested increase in 2008 over
the final 2007 appropriation. The $17.3 billion 2008 request would be a 6.5 percent
increase, of which $12.6 billion would go for R&D activities (up 6.7 percent;
see Table II-12).
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The Constellation Systems program to develop the new Crew Exploration Vehicle
and Crew Launch Vehicle would increase 10 percent from 2007 to $3.1 billion in
2008. Funding shortfalls in 2007 and project delays recently led NASA to push
back the launch date from 2014 to 2015 at the earliest. Construction
of the International Space Station, now in full gear with the return of the Space
Shuttle to flight, would require $2.2 billion next year, up $503 million from
this year.
- Increases
for these two big-ticket programs would leave NASA’s research-oriented programs
in decline. Although NASA would protect the Science program of earth science,
earth observations, astronomy, planetary science, and robotic missions from cuts
(up 2.4 percent to $5.5 billion), aeronautics research would plummet 20 percent
to $554 million and the remnants of the life and physical sciences effort would
be $183 million, less than half last year’s funding level. Even within the Science
portfolio, a downscaling of funding from previous plans has led to cancellations
or delays of many missions and projects.
NASA R&D in the FY 2008 Budget
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
continues to forge ahead with its full program of flying the Space Shuttle, building
the Space Station, funding research across a broad range of disciplines, and developing
the next generation of space vehicles as part of the Vision for Space Exploration,
but tight budget constraints in the overall federal budget and NASA Administrator
Michael Griffin’s promise to do everything within a budget rising no faster than
the rate of inflation are forcing tough choices in the agency’s priorities. NASA’s
total budget of $17.3 billion in FY 2008 would be $1.1 billion or 6.5 percent
more than the current year because of a recently finalized 2007 appropriation
that fell well below what NASA requested (see Table II-12),
but the new budget would only bring funding roughly even or down slightly in real
terms compared with past budgets (see Figure 1).
NASA’s
R&D funding would climb $788 million or 6.7 percent to $12.6 billion (see
Table II-12 and Figure 1), continuing a rebound from
a dismal 2005 when Shuttle cost overruns forced the agency to siphon money from
R&D programs to the non-R&D Shuttle. But efforts to develop next-generation
human space vehicles to replace the Shuttle and ramped-up construction of the
International Space Station (ISS) would take up the entire R&D increase and
more, leaving all other NASA R&D programs combined with declining funding.
NASA’s Constellation Systems program aims to develop a new Orion Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CEV) and Ares 1 Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) to replace the Space Shuttle
as the primary means of getting humans into space. This large program to fund
development of the CEV, CLV, and related technologies is part of the President’s
Vision for Space Exploration, announced in 2004, to get humans back to the moon
and onward to Mars. Funding quadrupled from just $422 million in 2005 to $1.7
billion last year, and increased again to $2.8 billion in 2007. The 2008 budget
would further boost funding 10.2 percent or $285 million to $3.1 billion. Although
the goal is to have the new vehicles ready by 2014, a nearly half-billion dollar
shortfall in the final 2007 appropriation from the 2007 request and project delays
have caused NASA to recently push back the projected launch date to 2015 or later.
The Vision for Space Exploration calls for the new vehicles to launch in 2014,
and the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 calls on them to launch as close to 2010
as possible.
The
International Space Station (ISS) budget would climb 29 percent or $503 million
to $2.2 billion in 2008, partly because of a transfer of support costs from Constellation
Systems to the ISS account and partly for a ramped-up construction schedule aiming
for final assembly of the Station in 2010, followed by full operations through
2016.
Figure
1. (click on image for PDF)
Together,
the Constellation Systems and ISS increases would take up the entire increase
for NASA R&D, leaving all other NASA R&D programs combined with cuts,
following similar cuts in each of the last four years (see Figure 1). Ironically, NASA is a large supporter of physical
sciences research but was left out of the President’s American Competitiveness
Initiative (ACI) to boost basic physical sciences research, and its support for
physical sciences research and other research would fall in the 2008 budget. NASA’s
basic and applied research support would fall 2.0 percent down to $3.4 billion,
less of a cut than in previous years but still a continuation of a downward trend.
Aeronautics research funding would tumble 20 percent down to $554 million in 2008
following similar cuts in previous years; in real terms, the aeronautics research
portfolio would be half its size of just four years ago (see Figure 2). The Human
Systems Research program would have an increase to $183 million, but only after
a 60 percent cut in 2007 and cuts in previous years to leave it a shadow of its
former self, when it was the Biological and Physical Research portfolio and funded
a broad range of life and physical sciences (see Figure 2). Astrobiology research
(funded in Science) to study the possible existence of life in the universe has
declined by half over the last few years.
Figure
2. (click on image for PDF)
The
Science portfolio of earth observations, astronomy, and robotic exploration of
the solar system and universe would be protected overall from cuts in the 2008
budget, but the portfolio’s funding has been flat in real terms since last year
and is well below the funding levels of previous years (see Figure 2). Science
funding is also considerably below previous years’ projected budgets, resulting
in the downsizing, reworking, and cancellation of numerous projects. The total
Science portfolio of $5.5 billion (up 2.4 percent) would just keep pace with inflation,
but would be down more than $1 billion from NASA’s earlier planning projections,
forcing cuts to many missions. Science has been reorganized into the four
themes of Earth Science, Heliophysics, Planetary Exploration,
and Astrophysics (see Table II-12). Funding for all four themes would increase
compared to 2007. The increase would allow work on the Stratospheric Observatory
for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) project to restart in 2008 after an abrupt halt
in 2007, would allow the James Webb Space Telescope to ramp up development efforts
to $545 million toward a 2013 launch, and would fund a 2008 servicing mission
for the current Hubble Space Telescope ($278 million). But there would be continuing
cuts in research and analysis funds for grants to analyze data obtained from science
missions, and there would be deferred launch dates in several projects.
In
the Earth Science portfolio in particular (up 3.7 percent to $1.5 billion), previous
funding reductions and escalating future mission costs are leaving their mark.
Development costs for future missions such as the multi-agency NPOESS satellites,
the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, and the Landsat
Data Continuity Mission have expanded, but funding for research and analysis to analyze earth
science data and make sense of them has been shrinking steadily. A recent National
Academy of Sciences decadal survey of earth science expresses concern that the
number of earth-observing sensors on NASA spacecraft could decrease by 40 percent
during this decade if current trends continue, such as a 30 percent real decline
in earth science funding so far this decade. As a result, NASA contributions to
climate change research, for example, are in serious decline. NASA’s role in the
multiagency Climate Change Science Program would total
$1.5 billion in 2008, mostly from Earth Science, down steeply from $2.0 billion
as recently as 2004.
Impacts
of the NASA Budget
The
proposed increase to NASA’s R&D portfolio in FY 2008 would continue a modest
upward trend for the last few years after hitting bottom in 2005, as shown in
Figure 1. NASA’s R&D funding has just kept pace with inflation going back
to FY 1991, and recent increases have been just barely ahead of inflation. Although
the Bush Administration’s moon and Mars plan ignited hopes of increasing resources
in a time of fiscal austerity, NASA committed to carrying out its ambitious plans
with a budget plan that would just keep pace with expected inflation over the
next decade. Although inflationary increases are more than most R&D funding
agencies are likely to get in the next few years, NASA’s big plans for the next
few years will require NASA to reshuffle its resources and to meet ambitious targets
for deployment, construction, and then phase-out of the Space Shuttle and Space
Station programs to make room for moon and Mars programs. Thus, NASA’s R&D
funding is likely to stay at this year’s levels in inflation-adjusted dollars
for the foreseeable future, with increases in priority programs offset by cuts
in other areas.
Although
much of NASA’s R&D portfolio funds development and facilities projects such
as the Space Station, NASA is responsible for 8 percent of all federal
support for basic and applied research, with far larger roles in key fields.
Engineering research makes up the largest part of the NASA portfolio
(see Figure 3). NASA funds nearly a quarter of total federal support for engineering
research. NASA supplies nearly all the federal support for some engineering sub-fields
such as astronautical engineering and aeronautical engineering. NASA
is the leading federal sponsor of the environmental sciences (oceanography, atmospheric
sciences, geological sciences). The environmental sciences
are a quarter of NASA’s portfolio, but NASA accounts for almost a third of total
federal support for environmental sciences research.
NASA also invests heavily in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry,
and physics). NASA is the second largest federal sponsor of physical sciences
behind the Department of Energy, and is by far the leading sponsor of astronomy
research with more than 70 percent of the federal total.
Figure
3. (click on image for PDF)
NASA’s
research funding has been flat to declining in recent years (see Figure 3), and
the 2007 and 2008 budgets are set to continue that trend. NASA support of the
physical sciences and environmental sciences have been in steady decline over
the past decade, and wild swings in NASA engineering research support from year
to year are mostly on a downward trend. With NASA devoting more and more of its
resources to development of new spacecraft and construction of large R&D facilities
such as the ISS, these trends are likely to continue.
Outlook
for the NASA Budget
There
is growing congressional dissatisfaction over NASA’s course of doing everything
it has promised within a flat real budget. Congressional appropriators and authorizers
have criticized the agency for siphoning resources away from research to keep
the Space Shuttle, ISS, and moon and Mars programs on track, but have mostly been
unable to come up with the additional money needed to sustain research. It remains
to be seen whether the 2008 appropriations process will be any different: although
lawmakers of both parties would like to boost NASA funding above the requested
$17.3 billion, they were unsuccessful in 2007 and budgetary conditions are just
as tight heading into the 2008 process.
(More materials on R&D in the
FY 2008 budget, historical data and charts, and more information on AAAS Report
XXXII: Research and Development FY 2008, can be found on the AAAS R&D
Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
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March 21, 2007
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Avenue,
NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
AAAS R&D Web site: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd
